Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into politics, military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

19 February 2008

Weekday Update

It's a day late. But, since yesterday was a holiday, I'll just call this a "virtual Monday Miscellany."

Variety once again demonstrates that it simply cannot be trusted to report accurately on anything even remotely related to a legal issue. A story yesterday on supposed changes to Russia's copyright system asserts:

The new law seeks to clarify Russia’s collective rights management system, which under the previous legislation was a confused and opaque tangle of overlapping authorities. Report author Golovanov explains that the new legislation divides rights management societies into two groups: those accredited by the government and authorized to represent the interests of authors and rights holders, and other societies who shall receive authorization only on the basis of agreements.

Nick Holdsworth, "Russia improves copyright law" (18 Feb 2008) (fake paragraphing removed for clarity). Had Holdsworth even bothered to read the whole report, he would have found that it emphasizes that the literal legislation available is not the principle barrier to enforcing intellectual property rights in Russia, and has not been since the mid-1990s. It's not even the second- or third-most-important such barrier. The most frustrating barrier is, instead, the concerted refusal of Russian courts to issue enforceable judgments even under the law as it stands in favor of foreign copyright holders (and other rightsholders) against Russian citizens. Some of this is the home-court advantage; more of it, however, is a system of referrals and procedure that would have frustrated the most accomplished government functionary under Murad the Mad. The wholesale Soviet abrogation of foreign copyrights is another significant barrier that the "new" legislation simply ignores. And so on.

Last week, it was film; this week, it's the music industry being accused of screwing creators out of royalties. There's a very simple reason that this sort of thing happens: Intellectual property is mercantilist; unfortunately, we all  especially modern corporations  live in a world whose accounting standards are firmly based on comparative advantage. These are incompatible conceptions; consider, for example, that applying "piracy" to improper copying is both technically correct... and reeks of mercantilism. In this context, though, the key issue is that comparative-advantage-based accounting assumes that the cost of goods sold is a constant that has been fully paid at the moment of sale, which is precisely what a "royalty" is not.

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Blog Archive

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the US Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.

Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:

The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance

The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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